Monday, November 21, 2011

Day Off-College Kickers

I am not one to rant and rave about anything in particular (of course not), but it's my day off and I need to post something.

This college football season has shown me that I missed my true calling. I should have been a field goal kicker in college.

Hear me out.

First, you get a full scholarship to some of the best academic schools in the nation (see Stanford, Duke, Notre Dame etc.)

Second, if your team wins a national championship or even a bowl game, you can put that on your resume and flash that ring at the bar, and all you had to do is avoid being trampled on a kick off return.

Lastly, you don't have to actually make any field goals outside of 22 yards. "WHAT?" you may say. That's right, you don't even have to make clutch field goals.

Take a look at every big loss this year. It is linked to kickers missing field goals. I mean a lot of these weren't even close! LSU v. Alabama: 3 missed field goals and one blocked. None of these even had a chance. Alabama loses in overtime. Boise St. v TCU: a miracle holding call on fourth down was soured by the Trojan's: Boner of the Week award with a miserable attempt at a kick from 30 something yards. And finally, this past weekend we had Oregon miss a 37 yarder to shatter the Ducks chance at a National Championship bid (and fall short of one of the best fourth quarter comebacks in recent memory).

I know what people are going to say, "It takes a team to lose, etc. etc., etc." and "It's not the kickers fault." What about when a player puts his team on his back and carries them to a victory? Do we not glorify that player and give them a game MVP? We should do the same for those who cost us the win: "The BRWL (biggest reason we lost) award goes to Alejandro Maldonado! You know what, at some point it has to be someone's fault. If you are playing golf in an alternate shot format and you hit a wedge from 120 yards out to 2 feet from the pin and your partner misses it to lose the match, is it your fault for not knocking your wedge in? Of course not, at some point someone has to take responsibility. I have never seen a more coddling exhibition of failure in sports then when a coach consoles a kicker after a miss. He's not doing his job.

Universities, instead of wasting your resources recruiting kickers, why not foot the bill for some anger management courses for your disgruntled law enforcement. Then again, it's been at least 40 years since the term "Hippy Bashing" was relevant.